


Leandra and the Commander

by Willowflower_Waterlily



Series: Ghosts and Guilt (Leandra Bethany Hawke, series 1) [3]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-24
Updated: 2015-07-25
Packaged: 2018-04-11 01:54:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4416572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Willowflower_Waterlily/pseuds/Willowflower_Waterlily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cullen visits Leandra, and tries to talk with her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Leandra hopes that her former commander will walk away if she doesn’t reply to his call to the house, but she knows he won’t leave without seeing her. Reaching for her sword, she straightens her back and prepares herself for a confrontation.

“Why are you here?” Leandra stares at Cullen, gripping the hilt of her sword. If he thinks she’s going to let him force her back to Skyhold, he’s sadly mistaken. She kept up with her training in the two years since she had been with the Inquisition last. He won’t find her as rusty as he probably thinks she is.

“Your siblings are worried about you. When you sent the ravens back without a letter, they feared the worst.” Cullen moves to stand closer to Leandra, but stops when she pulls her sword out of its sheath.

“You’ve seen I am alive and well.” Leandra scowls at Cullen, preparing herself for an attack. “Now turn around, and leave.”

“I’m going to be staying in Honnleath for a couple of days, if you want to talk.”

Leandra rolls her eyes at Cullen, making sure he maintains his distance from her. “If I wanted to talk to someone, I would talk to my brother. Why is it that you’re really here? Is it because you’re truly worried or is it because you still bear a torch for my mother?”

Cullen reflexively presses his hand against his chest, his eyes filling with tears. He isn’t sure what hurt more, that Leandra didn’t think him concerned for her or that she had called him out on his feelings for Evelyn. He averts his gaze from the woman he has thought of as a daughter. She looks nearly identical to her mother, save her eye color. Evelyn had given him the look her daughter now has fixed on him. “I do still have feelings for your mother.” Cullen replies, his voice soft. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not worried about you.”

“I don’t believe you, but if you say so.” The icy tone in Leandra’s voice breaks his heart. Where had the girl he had first met gone to? The girl who had been eager to learn and help protect the world. She had always been the one to go out of her way to help people fit in with the Inquisition, to help them train. The woman she is now is completely alien to him. The pain Cullen feels at her reversal takes his breath away.

“Stay in Honnleath, but leave me alone.” With one last scowl, Leandra turns from Cullen and walks back into the house.


	2. Chapter 2

Standing in front of Mia’s grave, Cullen hangs his head in shame. “I’m so sorry Mia.” He whispers, touching the stone. “I understand how Leandra feels. I just wish I could make her see that she shouldn’t punish herself like this. She needs to heal.”

Wiping a stray tear away, Cullen thinks on the times he tried to talk to Leandra, only to be met with a stony silence. He isn’t sure which hurts more the anger or being ignored. Slowly making his way toward Leandra’s house, he sees her walking away from the house, to another path he never noticed before.

Looking around as he follows the new path, Cullen is surprised he had never seen it before. He spent many days by the lake as a child, and never knew there was more than the one he had taken. Stepping into a clearing, Cullen spots Leandra kneeling in front of a small grave.

“My parents found this clearing, years ago.” Leandra’s voice cuts through the silence. The sorrow in her voice is enough to rip Cullen’s heart to shreds. She doesn’t deserve this pain, none of them did. It made it hard to believe in the Maker when He ignores the plight of those who do good in this world.

“Is this what they would want for you?” Cullen’s quiet question makes Leandra inhale sharply. Closing her eyes, fighting back a wave of tears, she gently touches her father’s grave stone. It wasn’t what they would want for her. Leandra knows it in her heart, but she can’t forgive herself. They would be alive, if she had done something differently.

“It doesn’t matter what they would have wanted, they’re dead.” Leandra whispers, not daring to face Cullen.

Leandra shrugs Cullen’s hand off of her shoulder, turning to face him. “What is it you want, exactly?”

“I want to see the girl who came to the Inquisition years ago, so full of hope and promise. She is still in you, I know it, but you need to heal. There are people who love you, let us in.”

“That girl is dead.” Leandra snaps at Cullen. “You’re chasing a ghost. You and everyone else need to leave me alone. I will never reply to any letters sent, nor will I ever go back to Skyhold.” Closing her eyes briefly, Leandra can almost feel her heart hardening. When she meets Cullen’s gaze again, the pain in his eyes doesn’t hurt her like it would have before. “Leave me be, and never come back.”


End file.
